Soft and Smooth

When it comes to close-quarters maneuvering, it’s hard to beat a joystick for a user-friendly interface with your boat’s systems, and it has been that way for quite some time. But you may have noticed—or at least now you will, now that I mention it—that those systems have gotten a lot better. Sure, the boat moves the same way, but a lot of the perceived wear and tear of nearconstant shift ing and steering movement has been ameliorated by the way the system deals with its challenges.

The first thing that has changed is much of the hardware on the boats is new. “Actually just about everything connected with electronics in the marine industry has been constantly evolving,” says Lee Moore, senior engineer of the Yacht Group, manufacturer of the Yacht Controller onboard joystick and control systems. “I can remember a number of years back where to control the bow thruster you just had